Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) To Make Major Supercharger Announcement

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has been having a very great month. The company raised $1 billion in new capital after issuing more shares. The company also reported their first profitable quarter and outsold their German luxury counterparts. On Monday May 13, the company’s stock was trading at about $80 per share and it closed on Friday at $91.50 with a market cap of about $10.57 billion. So what’s next on deck? Superchargers! On Tuesday May 14th, Musk wrote a tweet saying “supercharger announcement pushed to next week. Something else this week.”

What Are Superchargers?
A Tesla Supercharger is a way to add more electricity to a Tesla Model S battery. At 90kW, a Tesla Supercharger can deliver four-and-a-half times more electricity to the battery than Twin Chargers. This allows the Model S to efficiently charge at highway speeds when on the open road. Tesla Superchargers are placed along several well-traveled routes in North America. There are currently nine Supercharger stations that are currently active. Tesla has a goal of expanding to over 100 stations in 2015. This is why I suspect Musk will announce the opening of several more Supercharger stations, sometime between Sunday May 19th and Saturday May 25th.

The nine stations are currently open in Folsom, CA; Harris Rance, CA; Gilroy, CA; Barstow, CA; Tejon Ranch, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Milford, CT (I-95 NB); Milford, CT (I-95 SB); and Newark, DE. You will notice that there is a lack of Supercharger central North America locations, but clearly there was not enough demand there up until recently.

Tesla introduced the first few Supercharger stations around September 2012 as a way to refill the Tesla Model S for free of charge. The Superchargers are even solar-powered. It enables the Model S to get 150 miles of range back in about half an hour. The Supercharger stations collect more solar energy than they expend on charging the Model S too. This extra energy contributes to the solar grid, which is great for environmental reasons.